Majority of Americans favour sex education in schools

Washington, June 20 (ANI): While a majority of Americans are in favour of sex education lessons in schools, nearly a third are against talking about homosexuality.

These findings have surfaced following a Fox News poll released on Friday.

The poll results show that even though majorities think it is appropriate to discuss the topics of pregnancy and homosexuality in sex-ed class, a sizable minority says discussing homosexuality should be off limits.

While 53 per cent of the people surveyed said that sex-ed should be taught in school, 20 per cent believed that it should be left to the parents to teach. Another one in four said “both”.

The study also showed that people under age 30 were 16 per cent more inclined than seniors aged 65 and over to say sex education should be taught in school.

The researchers say that that difference might be due to the fact that about 50 per cent of seniors said that they learnt the “facts of life” at home, while a plurality of young people said that they learnt them at school.

However, the results also showed that 72 per cent people said sex education should be optional, while 26 per cent said that students should be required to attend.

Parents and non-parents agree sex education should be taught in school, and that it should be optional.

There were mixed views regarding what should be the right age to start talking about sexual issues, with 14 per cent suggesting that it was appropriate to start talking about the birds and bees to elementary school students.

However, most thought that those topics were best reserved for middle school or even high school.

Few thought that it is not appropriate to discuss pregnancy and birth control in sex education programs at all. (ANI)